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Author Topic: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?  (Read 795 times)

Thanshin

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Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« on: February 03, 2010, 12:02:23 pm »

Which do you think would be the maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?

Not from the beginning, but if you take a settled fortress of around 50 dwarves, how would you set up a minimum of dwarves to maintain the largest possible military mass?

On "maintain" I include making or obtaining all a soldier needs: food, booze, water, healthcare, armor, weapons, ammo, backpacks, quivers, etc.
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Derakon

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2010, 12:16:00 pm »

50 dwarves?
You'll need one farmer. He can churn out dwarven syrup roasts to feed 50 dwarves. This won't even take up all of his time, though he'll be pretty busy with farming. Let's say that farming + processing + cooking + distilling takes up this dwarf's entire life. That might be a bit more than one dwarf can handle, but it's pretty close.
You'll need a carpenter to make the occasional barrel to store dwarven syrup or booze in. But he won't be very busy with this, so he can also make armor and weapons.
You'll need a dwarf to handle healthcare. Again, he won't be very busy with just that, so let him deal with leatherworking and ammo production.

So I'd say three dwarves should be able to handle it. This is of course if you don't mind having some low-quality goods to work with (or don't mind spending a long time training up your civilians). It also assumes you've already dug out/constructed your entire fortress and aren't expanding; otherwise you'd need a miner, someone to make furniture and do constructions, etc.
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SkyRender

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2010, 12:17:05 pm »

 Theoretically, at least, you could manage a fort of 80 with just one or two active Dwarves doing all the work.  That requires a LOT of micromanagement, however.  In practice, as long as you have a single dedicated Dwarf for every major job, you can get away with a pretty military-heavy fort that's also not too terribly demanding.  Basically, you'd need a dedicated miner, mason, carpenter, farmer, cook, brewer, and craftsdwarf (bone and/or wood; depends on what you have to work with).  Each should have a backup job, too (butcher, tanner, clothier, leatherworker, trader, woodcutter, and mechanic), but not one related to their primary job (ie. don't make your cook the butcher too).
« Last Edit: February 03, 2010, 12:18:36 pm by SkyRender »
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Loyal

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2010, 12:30:12 pm »

Well, a single legendary farmer can literally feed an entire fortress if you aren't too picky about prepared meals, a well will keep them watered since my soldiers never seem to have any problems going sober (and will, in fact, actively go sober if you give them a waterskin at all... though the next version will fix this). Haulers and such can be assigned to make furniture on the fly since quality doesn't really matter there. I'd say at least 1/10 dwarves are needed for this purpose. This is just if you want a "functional" fortress as opposed to a "working" one.
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o_O[WTFace]

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2010, 02:37:59 pm »

If you are not trying to churn out tons of crafts or whatever all you need is
1) planter/brewer/cook (may need 2 for this)
2) carpenter/mason to churn out rooms for new immigrants
3) miner
4) armor/weapon smith
5) ammo crafter, unless your using metal

Of course if you get all that done ahead of time, all you really need is 1-2 farmers and a bone bolt maker. 
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Hyndis

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2010, 04:15:40 pm »

A single farmer growing plump helmets year round can produce staggering amounts of food. Also do not worry about booze, just give them a well.

Yes they will get tired of eating plump helmets and will complain about no booze to drink, but so long as they are sparring and/or chatting with friends it won't matter. The happy thoughts from sparring and talking with friends will vastly outweigh the negatives from being tired of the same food and having no booze.

If you want you could switch things up by going with surface farming. Grow two different crops, like, say, strawberries and sun berries, so the dwarves will have variety. Or plump helmets and sun berries. No need to brew roasts.
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bluea

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Re: Maximum sustainable ratio soldier/peasant?
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2010, 05:09:44 pm »

At 226 people in a fort, I have way (way, way) more food and beer than I need with 20 legendary planter/brewer/thresher/miller/butcher types.

I'm nowhere near the minimum requirements for food and beer - the planters are idling more than half the time while the plants grow, etc. The butchers only ever get any work when there's a wave of goblins-on-beakdogs, the beakdogs taste like chicken.

Planting sweet pods and rock nuts makes the entire system more complicated, but they sure produce even more than plump helmets.
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